THE CHIMÆRA.

BALD-SUMMIT.

INTRODUCTORY TO "THE CHIMÆRA."

UPWARD, along the steep and wooded hill-side, went
Eustace Bright and his companions. The trees were
not yet in full leaf, but had budded forth sufficiently
to throw an airy shadow, while the sunshine filled
them with green light. There were moss-grown rocks,
half hidden among the old, brown, fallen leaves; there
were rotten tree-trunks, lying at full length where
they had long ago fallen; there were decayed boughs,
that had been shaken down by the wintry gales, and
were scattered everywhere about. But still, though
these things looked so aged, the aspect of the wood
was that of the newest life; for, whichever way you
turned your eyes, something fresh and green was
springing forth, so as to be ready for the summer.

At last, the young people reached the upper verge
of the wood, and found themselves almost at the summit
of the hill. It was not a peak, nor a great round
ball, but a pretty wide plain, or table-land, with a
house and barn upon it, at some distance. That house
was the home of a solitary family; and oftentimes the
clouds, whence fell the rain, and whence the snow-storm
drifted down into the valley, hung lower than
this bleak and lonely dwelling-place.

On the highest point of the hill was a heap of
stones, in the centre of which was stuck a long pole,
with a little flag fluttering at the end of it. Eustace
led the children thither, and bade them look around,
and see how large a tract of our beautiful world they
could take in at a glance. And their eyes grew wider
as they looked.

Monument Mountain, to the southward, was still in
the centre of the scene, but seemed to have sunk and
subsided, so that it was now but an undistinguished
member of a large family of hills. Beyond it, the
Taconic range looked higher and bulkier than before.
Our pretty lake was seen, with all its little bays and
inlets; and not that alone, but two or three new lakes
were opening their blue eyes to the sun. Several white
villages, each with its steeple, were scattered about in
the distance. There were so many farm-houses, with
their acres of woodland, pasture, mowing-fields, and
tillage, that the children could hardly make room in
their minds to receive all these different objects.
There, too, was Tanglewood, which they had hitherto
thought such an important apex of the world. It now
occupied so small a space, that they gazed far beyond
it, and on either side, and searched a good while
with all their eyes, before discovering whereabout it
stood.

White, fleecy clouds were hanging in the air, and
threw the dark spots of their shadow here and there
over the landscape. But, by and by, the sunshine was
where the shadow had been, and the shadow was
somewhere else.

Far to the westward was a range of blue mountains,
which Eustace Bright told the children were the
Catskills. Among those misty hills, he said, was a spot

where some old Dutchmen were playing an everlasting
game of ninepins, and where an idle fellow, whose
name was Rip Van Winkle, had fallen asleep, and
slept twenty years at a stretch. The children eagerly
besought Eustace to tell them all about this wonderful
affair. But the student replied that the story had
been told once already, and better than it ever could
be told again; and that nobody would have a right to
alter a word of it, until it should have grown as old
as "The Gorgon's Head," and "The Three Golden
Apples," and the rest of those miraculous legends.

"At least," said Periwinkle, "while we
rest ourselves
here, and are looking about us, you can tell us
another of your own stories."

"Yes, Cousin Eustace," cried Primrose,
"I advise
you to tell us a story here. Take some lofty subject
or other, and see if your imagination will not come up
to it. Perhaps the mountain air may make you
poetical, for once. And no matter how strange and
wonderful the story may be, now that we are up among
the clouds, we can believe anything."

"Can you believe," asked Eustace,
"that there was
once a winged horse?"

"Yes," said saucy Primrose; "but
I am afraid you
will never be able to catch him."

"For that matter, Primrose," rejoined the student,
"I might possibly catch Pegasus, and get upon his
back, too, as well as a dozen other fellows that I know
of. At any rate, here is a story about him; and, of
all places in the world, it ought certainly to be told
upon a mountain-top."

So, sitting on the pile of stones, while the children
clustered themselves at its base, Eustace fixed his
eyes on a white cloud that was sailing by, and began
as follows.